UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 4, 2017. A minimum average set of grocery items one needs per month cost 4,082.3 RUR in Sverdlovsk Region in late March 2017. According to Sverdlovskstat, this is 3.1% more than at the start of the year. All in all, consumer prices rose by 1% in March 2017 against December 2016. Food items grew 1.4% more expensive, potatoes 33.1% more expensive, onions 22.6% more expensive, carrots 16.9% more expensive, and cabbage 7.6% more expensive. At the same time, sugar is now 11.1% cheaper, while millet and buckwheat are 9.6% and 7.4% cheaper, respectively.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 4, 2017. Sverdlovsk Region’s inflation rate stood at 4.1% in April 2017 (compared with one year earlier), Sverdlovskstat reports. Food items grew 3.4% more expensive in the course of one year, non-food items 4.9%, and alcohol and services grew 6.6% and 3.5% costlier, respectively. Compared with March 2017, inflation stood at 0.1% in April 2017.

UrBC, Moscow, May 4, 2017. Apple Corporation reports its iPhone sales declined by 43,000 units in the second quarter of the financial year 2016/2017, Prime refers to the company’s report as stating. The company sold 50.76m iPhones, compared with 51.19m one year previously. At the same time, their quarterly dividends went up by 10.5%, leaving investors unimpressed and the share price dropping by 1.9%, down to $144.65. The company’s profit rose by 4.9%, up to over $11bn, its revenues by 4.6%, up to $52.9bn. Apple managed to both increase their sales and reach the all-time high in terms of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 3, 2017. The telecommunications provider MegaFon’s technicians introduced 270 km of fiber optic along the electric main supports from Revda to Krasnoufimsk, MegaFon Ural’s press service reports. This means the Internet connection will be twice as fast for over 200,000 local smartphone and tablet computer users. Not only those based in Revda and Krasnoufimsk but also residents of Nizhniye Sergi, Mikhailovsk, Arty, Achit, and the smaller settlements in the area such as Bakryazh, Chatlyk, Krylovo, Kriulino, Atig, and Verkhniye Sergi can benefit from the improvements as

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 3, 2017. Mining teams headed by Sergey Saprykin and Alexander Asinsky both did 1km worth of stoping work at EVRAZ Holding’s Mezhegeyugol Mine in March 2017. So far, this has been the best result across the holding’s mining division, EVRAZ Holding Siberia’s Corporate Relations Center reports. ‘Mezhegeyugol miners set a high benchmark for the entire team of Raspadskaya Coal Company. Workers at Yerunakovskaya 8 Mine and Raspadskaya Mine, who are using the same techniques, are only planning on reaching the same output. I hope our miners at Mezhegeyugol will set a new

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 3, 2017. Ural Airlines’ Wings of Good Program won the national Best Social Program Award, the air carrier’s press service reports. ‘The prize-giving ceremony took place in Moscow Region on April 28. Ural Airlines won a certificate and a prize in Charity category,’ the press service says. Wings of Good is a project coordinated jointly by the airline, the Konstantin Khabensky Fund, and RusFond. Passengers and members of the company’s Wings Club can donate their bonus points/miles to the charity funds. The money will be directed to cover air travel for ill children and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 3, 2017. Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev asked the area’s Investment & Development Minister to personally supervise the promising production projects currently under way in Kachkanar and to help the town council in their applying for the status of a special economic zone/priority social and economic development area, the Governor’s Mid-Urals Information Policy Department reports. According to Governor Kuivashev, about a third of Sverdlovsk Region’s population get directly affected by problems of one-employer towns. In Kachkanar, production is

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 3, 2017. The number of people living in Yekaterinburg now comes to over 1.5m, the city council’s website states. ‘According to the data collected by Municipal Population Register, our automatic information system, there were 1,501,000 people living in the city as of May 1, 2017,’ the website states. A month earlier, the figure stood at 1,498,542, which means the city’s population rose by more than 2,450 people in just one month. The male/female ratio has remained the same as last year, with men and women comprising 44% and 56% of Yekaterinburg’s residents,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 2, 2017. Thumbelina will be performed on ice at Yekaterinburg’s Greenwich Mall on Friday, April 28. This is part of the annual Sale Night, Malyshev 73 Society’s press service reports. Professional ice-skaters are going to act out some fragments from Thumbelina. ‘To provide an interesting and unusual show for the event, we invited actors from Voskresenye Ice Theater to deliver a performance on the 20-m2 ice arena that visitors with children will enjoy watching,’ the press service says. The Sale Night’s program also covers a performance by Neizvestnye, a roller-skating

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 2, 2017. The number of tower cranes used at Yekaterinburg construction sites (excluding the frozen housing projects) came to 85 in the first quarter of the year, which is one crane more than in the last quarter of 2016 and five cranes less than one year previously, Ural Real Estate Chamber Analytical Department’s report states. 367,000 m2 worth of housing projects are frozen at the moment, which is almost three times as much as in the first quarter of 2016 (127,000 m2). The current new home market supply comes to around 17,000 apartments.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 2, 2017. Yekaterinburg Customs’ foreign trade turnover came to $1.7bn in the first quarter of the year, the customs’ press service reports. Cargo turnover reached 1,400,000,000 kg, up 14% on one year previously, with imports amounting to 6.2% and exports to 93.8% of the overall weight. Compared with the first quarter of 2016, the number of cargo manifests rose by 21.3% and the number of importers/exporters went up by 13.2% (+14.5% on exporting countries and +17.8% on importing ones) in the first quarter of this year. Yekaterinburg Customs’ primary trade partners were

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 2, 2017. GIRAFFE, the manufacturer of cranes that are currently used in the construction of the World Football Championship 2018 facilities in Yekaterinburg, Volgograd, Kaliningrad, Nizhniy Novgorod, and Saransk, is now working together with MegaFon, the telecommunications provider’s press service reports. A group of companies dealing in crane technologies has already had new cranes installed at twelve stadiums in different Russian cities. MegaFon improved mobile connection quality and increased the speed of Internet connection by three times to meet the crane

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 2, 2017. Four of Ural Airlines’ flight attendants took part in SkyService Forum 2017 in Moscow’s Gostiny Dvor on April 26-27, the air carrier’s press service reports. The four women won bronze in Sale As A Service category. ‘SkyService is a grand international event in the field of on-board service. This year’s forum was streamed along an exhibition, a conference, a number of workshops, and some presentations. Flight attendants from twenty-one different companies could take part in training sessions and master classes by SKYSHOP brands’ representatives,’ the press

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2017. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development’s customers can now track the publicly available data on their contractors online with the help of Indicator, a new service that comes with the UBRD’s online banking package for businesses, the bank’s press service reports. Once you enter a company’s individual taxpayer’s number, accessible information gets automatically processed from all the government registers, the existing non-payers’ blacklists, arbitration courts’ protocols, and bankruptcy proceedings records. Indicator looks for facts that can

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2017. Ural Airlines recently introduced a new flight from Moscow’s Zhukovsky Airport to Tel Aviv and back, the air carrier’s press service reports. ‘The solemn opening ceremony took place on April 26. The event was attended by the airport’s top officials, the airline representatives, and Head of Israel’s Tourism Ministry’s Russian Department Ksenia Kobyakova. The flight arrived from Tel Aviv at 5:50 PM; passengers traveling from Moscow to Tel Aviv were treated to a cake; a symbolic red ribbon was cut as well. A special greeting ceremony with a traditional water

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2017. EVRAZ Holding’s City of Friends-City of Ideas grant project will be held in as many as four cities — Nizhniy Tagil, Kachkanar, Novokuznetsk, and Mezhdurechensk — for the first time this year. EVRAZ Holding Ural’s PR Department reports the competition takes off in Nizhniy Tagil and Kachkanar on October 1 and in Novokuznetsk and Mezhdurechensk on May 10. The goal is to promote public initiatives and to support socially important projects. Anyone can submit their application to be considered by the contest judges. The projects must be aimed at improvements in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2017. Four workers of ChTPZ Group’s Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant received state awards after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to this effect, the company press service reports. The solemn awarding ceremony took place in Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District’s office in Yekaterinburg. Roller Sergey Obsekov and hot-roll section foreman Gennady Ikrin from the plant’s pipe-rolling department were awarded the honorary titles of Russia’s Honored Metallurgist. Head of the plant’s electric pipe-welding

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2017. Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev is going to visit Kachkanar on a business trip, the Governor’s Information Policy Department reports. The agenda of the visit covers tours of social infrastructure facilities, including School 2 and Stroitel Park, where a clean-up initiative will get coordinated that day. Governor will also come to EVRAZ Holding’s Kachkanar Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise (KGOK). Kuivashev expects to hold meetings with EVRAZ Vice President and head of the holding’s Ural division Maxim Andriasov and representatives of

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, April 28, 2017. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) got its industrial and job safety management system audited for compliance with the OHSAS 18001:2007 international standard requirements once again, the company reports. The system was audited by AO Bureau Veritas Certification Rus, with experts coming to visit the plant’s production departments in accordance with the approved audit procedure. No discrepancies or problems were detected in the course of the inspection. MMK’s industrial and job safety management system therefore could get

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 27, 2017. The Ural business community keeps choosing text and multimedia messages as their preferred advertising channel. According to MegaFon analysts, the number of companies willing to book a text messaging option as one of their advertising tools has gone up by 1.5 times since the start of this year, the telecommunications provider’s press service reports. Text messages have grown so popular because they help segment a company’s target audience based on their gender, age, or location - thanks to MegaFon.Target. In Russia on the whole, over 2,500 of MegaFon’s